Customer Success Is the Toughest Area

On this week’s Run the Numbers, CJ sits down with Steve Isom of Bloomerang to break down what a “strategic CFO” really is. They cover the shift from reporting to operating, why customer orgs drive SaaS value, and how AI is reshaping the finance role. 

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SPONSORS:

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SpendHound is a SaaS spend management platform built for finance and procurement teams that want visibility and leverage in every deal. By tracking all your software, benchmarking pricing across thousands of vendors, and surfacing contracts and renewals, SpendHound helps you stop overpaying and negotiate with confidence. Trusted by teams at ZoomInfo and Hootsuite. Get started at https://www.spendhound.com

Brex is an intelligent finance platform that combines corporate cards, built-in expense management, and AI agents to eliminate manual finance work. By automating expense reviews and reconciliations, Brex gives CFOs more time for the high-impact work that drives growth. Join 35,000+ companies like Anthropic, Coinbase, and DoorDash at https://www.brex.com/metrics

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LINKS: 

Steve on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/steveisomjr

Company: https://bloomerang.com/

CJ on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cj-gustafson-13140948/

Mostly metrics: https://www.mostlymetrics.com

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TIMESTAMPS:

0:00 Preview

1:25 Intro

2:55 Welcome Steve Isom

3:13 CFO to COO promotion

5:02 Having a pulse on every function

6:51 Defining "strategic CFO"

7:19 Tying strategy to value creation

9:27 Being embedded in the rhythm of the business

10:55 Finance leaders as commentators vs. team captains

12:25 Sponsors — RightRev | Rillet | EY

15:33 Killing projects as a core skill

18:14 Activity doesn't equal impact

19:16 Project Steve killed

20:39 Taking over the customer org at Bloomerang

22:18 Why acquisition is a cash-losing exercise

23:07 LTV lives post-sale

24:39 Most vulnerable area: customer success

25:24 Ruthless CSM segmentation

26:30 Nonprofits don't think about your software

29:21 Sponsors — Spendhound | Brex | Aleph

32:43 CFO running ops

35:52 Metrics vs. humans

37:18 Skip levels and what they reveal

39:01 Incentives drive the wrong outcomes

40:22 Customer-introduced delays as a key sub-metric

40:27 Unit economics become tangible when you're accountable

42:17 Going deep on AI

45:13 Motivating your team to experiment with AI

46:02 AI for personal projects

47:05 Resource allocation in a vibe-coding world

48:42 Does AI efficiency just mean more work?

50:32 What excites Steve about the future of finance leadership

52:08 Finance leaders who don't use AI won't get hired

52:13 Credits

#RunTheNumbersPodcast #CFO #StrategicFinance #SaaSFinance #FinanceLeadership #CFOtoCOO